I just listened to a webcast at the Bobby Lopez section of YouTube. They were talking to Bhrett McCabe, a sports psychologist.
There were some interesting points that he made and I'm going to discuss a few here.
He says that there are about 5 types of people -- and we are talking about folks who are competing. I'd guess there are a few more if we open up a discussion about other things. But, hey, maybe not. Maybe the human race is that simple.
He lists these as the worrier, who thinks about every possible disaster that might happen. There is the guy who is ice cube cold -- at least on the outside. There is the guy who gets hot, one who throws the clubs, the guy who attacks, etc.
Bhrett says that if he had a young athlete with some of these things, he would not change them. Some disappear as the people get older. (But that might be 15 years!). He makes the remark that this is what makes us human and to try to change that or hide will not be in our best interest.
Maybe "be yourself, and try not to hurt anyone," would be a reasonable way to look at this.
He is selling methods and processes to help athletes get better. One of these is a golf journal. He says that golfers are very bad at journaling. I've run across this in the shooting world. There it was common for shooters to keep track of problems and solutions -- at least on the elite levels. Shooting is a lot like golf in that the problems return and if you don't remember the solutions, you waste a lot of time. So write it down and read the notes!
I'm at the driving range a few years back. A guy I had talked with was all excited. "I found it!" "Did you write it down," I asked. "No, I've got it. No need." Two days later, "How's the new swing?" "I've lost it," he said. I've never seen him since. He may have given up the game for all I know. We've all been there. I've written down a lot, but I can't get into the habit of reading through it.
When I run across notes from years ago it's full of things that seem strange and not applicable. Have I moved on and changed? Hard to say.
One other point Bhrett made was that it was not his job (or perhaps not possible) to change a 78 golfer to a 68 golfer. But he would seek to make the 78 guy shoot 76. It looked like it was small increments if your issues were mental in nature. Maybe swing changes would make the bigger difference, but implementation is a mental thing, so maybe it's all back to that.
His talk in re golf seemed to make a player more efficient. The best goal for the shot. Every shot should have a goal. The goals ought to reflect what the golfer can do. Not what the golfer expects to do or dreams of doing, but what is reasonable. He talks of a pin on the right of the green. Easy picking if you fade the ball. But the goal for a player who plays right to left may correctly be the center of the green. You'll take a short sided disaster out of the probability pool. Then regardless of the results of the putting, you should feel good about goal management and shot selection.
I should talk about my own game as mom likes to read what I am up to and it might be insightful for me to try to summarize.
As I see it, my game has gotten a lot better lately. The driver is about 90% from about 25%, and some of the longer clubs have been behaving better as well. Those changes are allowing me to get to more greens in regulation than before. The putter is doing some amazing things as well. 5 putts through the first 5 holes the other day. That takes the pressure off of getting to the greens as chipping and putting is fairly reliable.
I would have to say that there are technical changes that are helping. I'd also suggest that my play is fairly low key and low expectations. My philosophy has been to hit it, find it and hit it again. Not too much planning as I would suggest that not every shot is critical.
It occurred to me that the shot one before par was the critical one. That might be the putt for birdie or the short pitch to get to the green. Obviously if the first shot or second was outstanding, then this "critical" shot maybe irrelevant. Think of hitting it stiff in regulation and the putt is a gimme.
So a lot of shots for me have no value or pressure attached to them. I'm going to hit an iron to a short par 4 and I drop into automatic mode. My short irons can be godlike and I just hit them at the pin. I don't know how I do it. I wish I had that consistency with the other clubs.
Now, let's go back and think about the driver which has been a problem for longer than I will admit to. There is the tendency to try to get more out of it than I have any hope of doing so. Sadly, it is very difficult to step back and try to hit an ordinary shot. But I think I've gotten better at doing that and of understanding what I am trying to do and better at banishing what I do when I duck hook it into the bushes 150 yards off the tee. Oh, I've made more than my share of pars from the bushes, but it's not fun and it lacks elegance.
Mostly I'm wandering the course, hitting the ball, commiserating or complementing my fellow players and having a nice time. I don't think about score much. I pay attention to where the pins are and from where I want to come into the greens. It seems to me that my fellow players don't seem to notice these things.
There may be reasons for that observation. If you don't have the control to hit to a particular side of a fairway, then aim for the middle and hit away. Some of the guys I play with are much longer than I am and they may have different problems than I do. Others are shorter and their first shot can't get them into trouble -- fair enough.
When I don't pay attention to score, it does a couple of things. It makes it hard for me to remember the round and what I had on each hole. I normally just keep strokes to par in my head, which on a good day, doesn't move a lot. This mode also seems to make each shot more of an individual challenge. Prior bad shots don't affect what I'm trying to do with the current one. Each shot is a separate challenge and I'm happy to have a lot of challenges on a hole or just a few.
I also get a great deal of satisfaction from a nice up and down; more than I would get from a GIR and two putt. It's the extra challenge of a shot that may require an amount of touch and delicacy.
That is a my post work life. I've got these interesting challenges in a beautiful place with like-minded golfers. It's quite a wonderful thing and I'm enjoying it immensely. Will I get bored and discard it and move on to something else? It's happened before. I've not played golf for decades as the years rolled along. But for now, it's working wonders for my mind and the 25 miles of walking a week can't be bad either.
Today was day off and a visit to the range. And tomorrow is another round. Stay tuned!
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